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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The reason Lonnie Chisenhall pushed his rehab from a broken right wrist as hard as he did was to have the kind of at-bat he had Sunday afternoon at Progressive Field as the Indians beat Detroit, 7-6.

With the shadows of a lost season growing longer by the minute, Chisenhall walked to the on-deck circle with the score tied, 6-6, in the ninth inning. The Tigers, in as close to a must-win as a contender can get with 17 games left, had just watched Jason Kipnis (double) and Carlos Santana (triple) erase their 6-5 lead against closer Jose Valverde.

With Santana standing at third, emergency manager Lloyd McClendon, filling in for the ejected Jim Leyland, did what he had to do with one out. He ordered Michael Brantley and Ezequiel Carrera intentionally walked to bring Chisenhall to the plate with the bases loaded. From the dugout manager Manny Acta yelled to Chisenhall: " 'Hey, that's disrespectful. Do something about that.' Lonnie just laughed."

Said Chisenhall: "Manny was just trying to keep me loose. I thought they'd only walk one guy. I didn't know they'd walk both guys to get to me."

One thing he did know. Valverde is a strike thrower. With the bases loaded, he wasn't going to get cute.

"I was hacking first pitch, trying to be aggressive," said Chisenhall.

Hack he did, sending Valverde's first-pitch fastball bouncing to the center-field fence for a game-winning single. It was the Indians' first win at home when they trailed after eight innings since July 25, 2011. Overall, they're 3-77 when trailing after eight with two of those wins coming in the past four games.

Chisenhall suffered a broken ulna bone above his right wrist when he was hit by a Troy Patton fastball on June 29 in Baltimore. He needed surgery to piece the bone back together. The Indians said he'd need "10 to 14 weeks" to recover.

When he rejoined the Indians on Sept. 9, the light had been turned out on the competitive part of the season due to a 5-24 August, but Chisenhall still had things to do. He wanted to prove to himself that he was healthy before playing winter ball for Licey in October to make up for some of the at-bats he lost.

"I came back for the at-bats," said Chisenhall. "I got after the workouts and everything they gave me. The trainers don't like to set expectations that I can't reach so they don't really tell you an exact time frame.

"They said 10 to 14 weeks. Cabby (Asdrubal Cabrera) missed maybe 81/2 weeks when he had a similar injury. I was playing rehab games at close to nine weeks."

Chisenhall has been the Indians' third-baseman-in-waiting for a while. The effort he put into his rehab and his willingness to go to winter ball will help him when he tries make the job his own next spring.

"This is important for him," said Acta, "and he deserves a lot of credit. He worked very hard to beat the odds and come back earlier than we anticipated. It's a small sample, but he's swung the bat really good considering he didn't have a lengthy rehab."

The Indians used a series of infield hits and groundouts to overcome Detroit's 3-0 lead. They led 5-3 after six, but Miguel Cabrera changed all that with one swing of the bat. Cabrera hit a three-run homer off Joe Smith in the seventh to give the Tigers a 6-5 lead.

It was Cabrera's 38th homer and his eighth this season against the Tribe.

"We felt it was our game. That we gave it away and we had to take it back," said Acta.

Kipnis, who hit a game-winning, two-run homer Thursday in Texas, started the ninth with a double to center. Asdrubal Cabrera flied out, but Santana tripled off the right-field wall for his third hit of the game to tie the score, 6-6.

"Coming into the ninth, for some reason, we felt pretty good about our chances," said Acta. "We had the right people at the plate. We were at home in a good left-handed hitting ballpark. It just felt good."

The Indians ended the season against the powerful Tigers at 10-8. Last year Detroit stomped the Tribe, 12-6, on the way to winning the AL Central title.

Cabrera's homer ruined a fine start by Ubaldo Jimenez. He allowed three runs, two earned, on five hits in six innings in his sixth start of the year against the Tigers.

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